


The King and the Inquisitor

by DAfan7711



Series: Inquisitor Romances [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-09 22:28:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4366598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DAfan7711/pseuds/DAfan7711
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh, come on, can’t you see it: The Bastard Prince saves Ferelden from the Blight and embraces his birthright. After ten lonely years, the King finds salvation in the arms of a woman who holds the power of the skies in her hand. It’d fly off the shelves.” - Varric</p><p>Katherine Cousland died defeating the archdemon, leaving Alistair Theirin to rule alone. When King Alistair rushes to Redcliffe, he finds Lady Margaret Trevelyan has already saved his people and defeated the occupying Magister.</p><p>Is it really love at first sight for Ferelden's King and the Herald of Andraste? Will their love survive a secret they didn't even know existed?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Trouble in Redcliffe

The King of Ferelden stood on his private balcony and absently ran a thumb over the gold locket that rested near his heart. He watched the main road for signs of the delegation he had sent to help his uncle host the free mages.

A breeze spirited up the subtle scent of red roses thriving in the gardens below, a view and smell that always soothed his nerves, reminded him of the light and valor—and love—he’d found and lost amidst the dark of the fifth Blight.

_The time approaches._ A whisper started to crescendo in his mind and Alistair willed it away, pushed it down deep where knowledge is a powerful weapon instead of a crushing fear.

“I’ll keep my mind until my body goes, and I am fully in command of both today,” he declared to the empty air, banishing the whisper. Then the only sound was birdsong in the gardens.

The peace lasted only a moment.

Beyond the castle walls, a great, billowing dust rose up from the road – it had to be a large company of horses running at full speed. He straightened, gripped the stone railing, and strained forward until the horses came into view at the top of the rise.

At the front rode the red-headed Arl of Redcliffe, leaning low in the saddle to encourage his sleek brown Ferelden Forder to move faster than any mortal horse had run before. Not even his personal guard could keep pace, though they moved so quickly, the standard carried by the Arl’s steward flapped in a frenzy that rendered the device upon it unrecognizable.

A three-note horn call—the call of war—rose from the approaching company and the watch on the battlements returned an answer in kind, summoning all those off duty and raising the portcullis for the horses to sprint right into the main courtyard.

Heedless of royal decorum, Alistair rushed down from his chambers to meet and embrace his uncle, Arl Teagan Guerrin, in the yard.

“Teagan.”

“Alistair.”

Near in age, and even nearer in mind and temperament, they didn’t need to say much to convey everything.

Teagan turned back to his mare for a moment, kissed her velvety nose, and looked into her liquid brown eyes. She stood proud and calm, though her muscles quivered from the long run and a foam of sweat covered her flank. Miniature red roses were braided into her mane, now covered in mud and blood.

“You have saved my life again, my friend,” he stroked her neck. “And I promise you we’ll get our home back.”

He entrusted her cool down to the stable hands and turned to face the King.

“Alistair, the rebel mages have indentured themselves to Tevinter. Redcliffe has fallen to the Imperium.”

-

 “I believe that messenger is trying to get our attention.”

“Ignore him, Cassandra. Let’s find that last red handkerchief and get the hell out of here.” Margaret Trevelyan, the Herald of Andraste, beckoned to one of the Inquisition agents mixing with the crowd and gave directions in an undertone.

“Report to Sister Nightingale without delay: The Loyalist Mages have a courier posted at the gate of Val Royeaux.”

The agent placed her fist over her heart, bowed, and melted back into the crowd. The Herald and her companions headed for the café.

 “You have a problem with the Imperial Enchanter?” Cassandra asked.

“We’ve met,” Margie said. “Her fanaticism for the Circles is matched only by her lust for power.”

“Madame de Fer,” Solas interjected, “can afford to support the circles: she herself was never restricted to one. The loyal mages are under her thumb. Additionally, she’s spreading rumors that Grand Enchanter Fiona is going senile.”

Her stomach clenched. It wasn’t Solas’ commentary or the upcoming challenges that made her queasy. It was the smell.

Every night in Val Royeaux, a legion of servants scrubbed the white marble to give the city its illusion of pristine sparkle, but they couldn’t hide how the scent of fresh pastries mingled with smell of fish left on the pier too long. Over it all ran the salty taste of sea air and the grumbling protests of citizens that had been in the square when the Inquisition agents arrived.

Despite a heavy—and phlegmy—Orleasian accent, the chantry sister grandstanding on the stage had been as easy to understand as she was vicious. It was the Templars who had been the surprise.

“I know they left the fold,” Margie said, “but I’m still shocked a Templar went and cold-cocked a chantry sister. Punched her – right in the back of the head. What kind of bastard does that?”

“That was very bizarre,” Cassandra agreed as they entered the café.

“No more so than chasing after these handkerchiefs,” Margie bent to retrieve the last one from under a table. “Oh, look: an invitation to meet in a dark back alley tonight. Let’s go.”

They avoided Vivienne’s agent on their way out, but were accosted by Grand Enchanter Fiona, who, of course, claimed the Templars were behind the explosion at the conclave and only the free mages could help.

 “Consider this an invitation to Redcliffe. Come, meet with the mages. An alliance could help us both, after all. I hope to see you there. Au revoir, my Lady Herald.”

“An alliance with the mages would give us the power we need,” Cassandra said as soon as Fiona left. “Come, let us return to Haven.”

“After we check out that alley,” the Herald insisted. She drew her dual blades and peeked around the corner. Then somebody threw a fireball at her head and mayhem broke loose.

-

When they got back to Haven, Margie pulled a large burlap sack off the back of her horse and dumped it at Harritt’s feet. His red mustache twitched.

“What’s this?”

“A bunch of used breeches – what can I get for them?”

“That’s what you got in Val Royeaux?”

“That, and an invitation to meet the free mages in Redcliffe.”

“Rebel mages? Sounds like a trap.”

“I’m sure it is.”

-

With the Orlesian civil war brewing to their west, and the Templars and mages fighting across Ferelden, King Alistair Theirin had troops ready and supplied along every major thoroughfare. Within an hour of Teagan’s arrival, Alistair had appointed Teagan temporary steward of Denerim and was himself leading his nearest reserve forces toward Redcliffe.

His sword and shield were already strapped alongside his saddle bags and bedroll. It had taken a nearly a week for Teagan to make the journey from Redcliffe to Denerim. Alistair hoped to shave a few days off that by riding harder and switching to fresh mounts in Lothering.

“Was Connor safe when you left?” he asked as he mounted his white steed.

“He was.” Teagan hesitated before continuing, “But he was unhappy. Unhappy about the vote to dissolve the Circles, unhappy to be back in Redcliffe where villagers still speak of the demon that once possessed him.

“He was dangerously close to despair, Alistair. I am afraid you must steel your heart for what you find when you again meet Eamon’s son. Your cousin is no longer the thankful boy you and the Lady rescued all those years ago.”

The Lady wasn’t a reference to Andraste, but a reference to Lady Katherine Cousland, The Hero of Ferelden. Teagan hadn’t used Kate’s name since she had given her life to defeat the archdemon of the fifth Blight. She had jokingly flirted with both Teagan and Alistair, but it was Alistair to whom she’d professed her eternal love in a fragile, dirt-covered tent surrounded by darkspawn.

Alistair hadn’t understood at first why Teagan had stopped using Kate’s name after her death. He thought they hadn’t met before the dead lay siege to Redcliffe. A year after his coronation, however, months since he’d last seen her, Leliana appeared in his quarters unannounced, with the story from the Hero’s older brother, Fergus, now Teyrn of Highever: The Couslands and Guerrins had been in betrothal negotiations before Rendon Howe slaughtered nearly everyone at Castle Cousland. Teagan and Kate had even spent a summer together during their youth, acting as host and hostess to soirees at some distant cousin’s summer palace.

When Alistair asked him about it, he answered, “I thought you knew.”

Teagan never mentioned it again, and Alistair didn’t ask for more details. Just as Teagan didn’t ask why Alistair had filled his palace gardens with red roses, Kate’s favorite flower. They understood so much of each other even when they didn’t discuss it much.

And yet there were some things Alistair had never shared with anyone. Like why he still breathed and Kate did not. Why he hadn’t been by her side when she landed the killing blow on the archdemon. He had respected her choice and held the gate with the others – but would it have been better to race after her, give his life instead? There was no way they both could have lived, not with Riordan gone, but perhaps she could have happily ruled Ferelden at Teagan’s side. With Eamon’s support, they could have easily convinced a landsmeet that Anora was as dangerous as her father had been and a uniting of houses Cousland and Guerrin would strengthen Ferelden’s throne.

Such thoughts were pointless. Kate would never be Queen. She was dead.

“The last time I hardened my heart, Teagan, I became King.”

He turned and rode with all speed toward Redcliffe.


	2. The King meets the Herald

The Herald’s visit to Redcliffe was going even worse than expected.

“We’re here because of your invitation back in Val Royeaux.”

“You must be mistaken. I haven’t been to Val Royeaux since before the conclave.”

Then in waltzed Magister Gereon Alexius of the Tevinter Imperium, who brazenly admitted to ejecting the Arl from Redcliffe. He had the audacity to call the Herald’s party his “friends” and boldly offered the services of the Ferelden mages he now held as slaves.

Lady Margaret Trevelyan was seething and very well may have started another war right there if Gereon’s son, Felix, hadn’t feigned illness and slipped her a note about yet another secret rendezvous.

“We should return to Haven,” Cassandra said as they exited the tavern.

“No, we’re going to investigate the chantry.”

Inside the chantry they found a rift and a mage fighting off demons. Closing the rift was easy—a helluva lot more fun than dealing with Alexius—and Solas patched up everyone’s burns while the Herald questioned Felix and the suspiciously helpful, albeit cute and witty “Dorian of House Pavus, most recently from Minrathous.” Then Felix and Dorian slipped out different side doors while the Inquisition agents exited the front.

“ _Now_ can we go back to Haven?” Cassandra asked.

“Yes, let’s, before this Venatori cult decides we’re better off dead than deceived.”

-

There was something new and even more troubling than the age-long tensions between mage and Templar: A foreign flag popping up in various territories all over Ferelden and Orlais.

As he rode through his own kingdom, Alistair saw banners with a device not seen since the founding of the chantry: an open eye over a sword in the middle of a sunburst. Vast areas of Thedas were now under the protection of the Inquisition.

All nations trembled at the sight, for the last Inquisition had been a bloodbath that resulted in the current orders of Templars, Seekers, and Mages.

All Alistair could do is hope that the Inquisition was as friendly toward Ferelden as Leliana hinted at in her letters to him. She was a bard, after all, and Seneschal for the Inquisition, an organization whose purpose may be to change the map forever.

Yet he couldn’t see her betraying Kate’s sacrifice to keep Ferelden united. Leliana sounded Orlesian, but had found her heart in Ferelden. She had shared their campfires and stood beside Kate when the Warden killed the archdemon.

Alistair mourned Kate, but Leliana had watched her die.

-

While the King changed mounts and caught a few hours of sleep in Lothering, The Herald received an invitation in Haven. Alexius requested her presence at Redcliffe Castle to negotiate mage help for sealing the Breach. Margie and Cassandra wanted to immediately accept, but they didn’t have a consensus at the war table.

“We should forget this nonsense and go get the Templars,” Cullen insisted.

“Running into them at Val Royeaux was a disaster,” Margie countered. “There’s no way Knight-Templar Barris talked any sense into the Lord Seeker. And the lieutenants are just as fanatical as Lucius. The Templars are a dead end.”

Leliana was worried about losing the mage alliance and leaving a hostile foreign power in Ferelden. Josephine was concerned that an open march of Inquisition soldiers would be considered an Orlesian act of war against Ferelden. Commander Cullen was exasperated:

“If you go in there, you’ll die, and we’ll lose the only means we have of closing these rifts. I won’t allow it.”

Now Margie was truly ticked.

“You won’t _allow_ —”

The war room door banged open against the wall and Dorian sauntered in. Margie was grateful for the interruption and excited when Dorian convinced her three advisors that they could infiltrate Redcliffe Castle.

She had met Connor at the docks. He’d seemed so lost. She didn’t want to leave him, gentle Lysas, or any of the other mages indentured to Alexius or conscripted into Tevinter’s army.

“We rescue the mages, and we leave _now_.”

-

“Sire,” a forward scout pulled around by Alistair and kept pace, “The landscape is grim, but the area appears empty of hostile forces.”

The King nodded and the scout pulled ahead to bolster the front guard.

Bloodied bodies lined the road to Redcliffe: Templars, mages, farmers and their children who had been caught in the crossfire. Some were burned to bone and ash, others left for scavengers. His people were dying, but he had to avert his eyes and keep riding before it was too late and Tevinter washed more of his land in blood.

As he and his troops neared the Crossroads, some signs of hope greeted them. Instead of the ring of combat, they heard villagers gossiping. Along scorched stone fences, survivors tended the fields and wrapped the dead in burlap vestments for pyre or burial.

At the town center flew the sigil of the Inquisition.

Alistair directed some of his troops to wait at either end of the square while he approached the town center with his house guard.

Two soldiers in Inquisition armor stood by the merchant cart, deep in conversation.

“Well done, recruit,” the taller soldier clasped the shoulder of the younger man, “distribute the supplies. Make sure every refugee has supper and a bedroll.”

“Yes, Ser.”

The King dismounted and his guard followed suit.

“Your Majesty, I’m Corporal Vale, of the Inquisition army.” Vale bowed but did not raise a fist to his heart.

“What’s the situation at Redcliffe Castle?”

“Tenuous, Sire, but the Herald is en route to resolve the situation.”

“Lady Trevelyan is here?”

“Yes, Sire. The Herald has cleared out the mage and Templar strongholds, and acquired us a skilled healer from Redcliffe. She also supplied us with meat and blankets for the refugees.”

Alistair saw the shine in Vale’s eyes and wondered how many of his subjects had given their hearts and loyalty to the Inquisition’s Herald of Andraste.  That might prove more dangerous than the occupation of Redcliffe by a Magister.

-

“Announce us.”

“The invitation was for Mistress Trevelyan alone. The rest will wait here.”

“Where I go, they go.”

The steward shrewdly eyed Varric and Blackwall, then led them into the throne room without further argument. The Tevinter guards flanking him wore masks and hoods. They were silent, but very obvious.

It was easy to keep Alexius talking long enough for Leliana’s agents to take out the guards, just as planned, but Margie hadn’t been prepared for the rift Alexius threw at her.

“No!” Dorian swung his staff and grabbed her arm as the Herald of Andraste fell through time, dragging him with her.

She was gone. A burnt grease stain on the red carpet was all that remained of the Herald and Dorian. And there was no one left to close the rifts, stop the Venatori’s spread across Thedas, or seal the Breach.

-

“Proceed with caution, Captain. We don’t know what sort of welcome the Magister has set for visitors.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

They slowed their horses to a walk along Redcliffe Road. Just beyond the first stone arch, the dirt and grass were trampled with signs of a recent battle. A rage demon had blackened the surrounding grass and an unidentifiable green goo stuck to the hillside.

The air carried the ozone stink of a closed rift.

“Judging from the smell, Sire, we’re no more than an hour behind them. A few bushes are still smoldering; I’ll leave some men to ensure a fire doesn’t spread.”

Alistair nodded his approval and continued to the second stone arch, where the portcullis stood open and they found evidence of another closed rift. Just beyond it was the ruin of an old windmill.

The King paused to stare at it, remembering the day he and Leliana had followed Kate through a trap door to sneak into the castle. Teagan had given them the key, his family ring, and played the bait, following his sister-in-law through the front door into a demon’s snare. He had been willing to sacrifice himself and the possessed Connor if the need arose, but Kate promised to save them all.

And she had saved everyone – except herself.

“Your Majesty?”

“Continue up the hill to the castle courtyard, Captain.”

It was a short journey by horseback and they encountered no resistance. As King Alistair and his soldiers dismounted in front of Redcliffe Castle, Inquisition soldiers secured two Tevinter mages in a barred wagon.

“Your Majesty,” the Inquisition guards at the door stepped aside to make room for the larger force. “Redcliffe has been liberated. Magister Alexius is in Inquisition custody. The Herald and Grand Enchanter are in the throne room.”

The rhythmic stomping of chainmail boots preceded him into the throne room, where he found three humans, a dwarf, and the elf who had once been a Grey Warden before she mysteriously lost the taint and went away to the Circle.

The singed ozone smell was here, too, with burns, blood, and broken furnishings. They’d kicked Teagan out and trashed his home, risked the lives of all the villagers, and threatened the entire kingdom. Alistair had a hard time holding his temper.

“Grand Enchanter. Imagine how surprised I was to learn you’d given Redcliffe Castle away to a Tevinter Magister.”

“King Alistair,” Fiona ducked her head and shuffled over.

“Especially since I’m fairly sure Redcliffe belongs to Arl Teagan.”

“Your Majesty, we never intended . . .”

“I know what you intended. I wanted to help you, but you’ve made it impossible. You and your followers are no longer welcome in Ferelden.”

Then Margaret Trevelyan stepped forward from the shadows and Alistair knew he was lost.


	3. The Herald meets the King

Sweet Andraste, the monarch was _hawt_.

Leliana had said he was cute, and there were paintings in various places, but they didn’t capture the living, breathing—and currently _livid_ —Alistair. Varric and the Champion had briefly met him in Kirkwall, so Margie had asked Varric what the King looked like. _Meh_ , was Varric’s answer.

Wait, what was he saying? He was exiling her best chance at an alliance to close the Breach.

“But . . . we have hundreds who need protection! Where will we go?”

Time to step forward, Margie, or lose the mages forever.

“We would be honored to have you fight as allies at the Inquisition’s side.”

-

When Fiona left the throne room, Alistair was alone with Lady Trevelyan. Well, with her, her three companions, and the two rows of armored soldiers he had brought as his personal guard.

Maker’s Breath, but she was a formidable sight in prowler armor with dual blades strapped to her back and a ram’s leather glove on her right hand. Her left hand was bare. Little ash-blonde tendrils of thick hair had escaped her bun and lay across her neck. Her green eyes were closer to the color of the Breach than any tree in Ferelden. And he had the sudden urge to get closer to find out how she smelled.

Alistair struggled to remember proper court etiquette. Addressing her as “Herald” was probably too contentious a move—a king had to be careful of such religious honorifics, particularly with the chantry’s current chaos. Plus, she had just given sanctuary to the mages he’d exiled and it would be safer to use a more traditional address she’d owned before joining the Inquisition.

“Lady Trevelyan, before you depart, let us discuss matters of state.”

“I would be honored, Your Majesty.”

By now, the night had grown late. While the King’s troops made further sweeps for Venatori agents in Redcliffe Castle and the village, his guard set his tent and pavilion in the main courtyard. Fires and torches gave a flickering orange light and woodsmoke wrapped its way around everyone.

The King and the Herald sat down to eat by the fire in front of his tent. With no servants or planned meal, they made do with rations they’d brought with them. She had ram meat and he provided dried dates and a wine skin.

“Tell me of these cultists.”

“I don’t know much yet, Your Majesty.”

“My name is Alistair.” He took a drink from the wine skin and handed it to her. He shivered when her warm fingers touched his own and couldn’t help but watch her lips and throat as she drank.

“They call themselves Venatori, serve someone called the Elder One, and plan to restore the glory of ancient Tevinter.”

“Mage rule across Thedas?”

“Yes, starting with Orlais. They plan to assassinate Empress Celene and raise a demon army.”

“Demon army? How— _that’s_ what the Magister wanted Ferelden’s mages for, to bind demons?! And the Grand Enchanter went along with it?”

“No, Alistair, she just wanted to escape the Templars.”

“Not all Templars are bad.”

“I know. Several survived the conclave and work with mages and other refugees at Haven.”

She popped a date into her mouth and watched his campfire while she chewed. He waited for her to break the silence.

He wondered if she knew he had trained to be a Templar before he had been conscripted by the Grey Wardens. He’d never taken vows or lyrium, but knew some of those she’d left in Haven were probably going through the agonies of withdrawal. The mage-templar war had disrupted the chantry’s lyrium trade routes even before the conclave explosion. Perhaps the Inquisition had some Carta smugglers bringing them lyrium – he’d seen a dwarf in her party.

All of Thedas, of course, knew King Alistair Theirin had been a Grey Warden along with the Hero of Ferelden, but very few knew of the taint—and even fewer knew about the Calling. Leliana knew. How much had she shared?

“Do you know if the Arl is okay?”

“What? Oh, yes, Teagan and Cou arrived at Denerim safely.”

“Coo?”

“Cou, C-O-U, short for Cousland. That’s his mare.”

“Named for the Hero of Ferelden?”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t for her older brother. Fergus didn’t quite affect Teagan the same way Kate did.” He chuckled and she gave him a wan smile.

Even that small gesture from her took his breath away.

“Sister Nightingale says we look alike.”

“Because you’re a blonde, green-eyed rogue, just as she was? That’s like setting a lioness next to a tigress and calling them both a housecat. All three are likely to eat you, but they definitely are not the same.”

She laughed. He grinned to see the sparkle in her eyes.

“I believe Leliana’s words were, ‘An eagle next to a hawk and calling both a finch.’”

“Of course Leliana would use a birds of prey reference. That’s not creepy at all. Hey, while she was telling you about the Hero of Ferelden, did she say anything about me?”

“Actually, she wouldn’t tell me much of anything, other than she misses her. Any time I ask her for a story, she tells me to go look in the library.”

“Ouch. When we traveled together, Kate could always get Leliana to share stories around the campfire.”

And he immediately wanted to kick himself in the arse. Shit, had he just shared _three_ things about his dead girlfriend? Did she even know he and Kate had been together? What he really wanted to do was invite Lady Trevelyan into his tent for a more private conversation—one that involved moans and sweat more than actual words. And then ask her to come to Denerim as soon as her duty allowed.

“You still love her,” Margie said softly.

Of course she knew.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I love you any less.”

“But we only met this afternoon, Your Majesty.” She looked away, into the fire.

“It only takes a moment to know, and I notice you’re not saying you don’t love me back.” He gently took her left hand in his and was relieved when she didn’t pull back, overjoyed when she met his gaze again.

“You called me Alistair twice before. I’d like to hear you say my name again.”

“Everything okay, Margaret?”

Alistair looked up to see her bearded companion. The burly man wore a Warden sigil on his breastplate and carried a griffon helmet.

“Yes, Blackwall, thank you.”

“Warden Blackwall? Warden Commander Duncan was my mentor. He spoke highly of you.”

“Duncan? Good man.” Without a farewell, Blackwall returned to help Varric and Dorian ready the horses.

“Sorry about that,” Margie said, “He’s even more tight-lipped about the Wardens than Leliana.

“Alistair? What is it? You look puzzled.”

“Not sure. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

-

Blessed Andraste, had the King of Ferelden just professed his love to her? Was this some trick of the Fade or Venatori time magic, cuz it was not funny in the least—tempting, but not funny. She was noble, yes, but a Marcher for Maker’s sake, and part of a supposedly heretical organization trying to restore order with military force. People throughout Thedas were calling her the Herald of the Maker’s Bride, looking to her to close the Breach in the sky.

_I notice you’re not saying you don’t love me back._

Of course she couldn’t say that. It would be a lie. She’d never lie to him.

But she couldn’t say the truth either, for his sake and Ferelden’s.

_I love you, too._

She had thanked him for the dried dates and wine, grabbed an hour of shut-eye on her bedroll by another campfire, and left with her companions at dawn. The mages traveled behind in a larger, slower-moving group, now protected by Inquisition soldiers on the way to Haven. They would arrive a few days later.

“Deep thoughts?” Varric asked, pulling his pony up next to her horse. Blackwall and Dorian rode a few lengths ahead, bickering.

“Hmm? Letting my mind wander. And wipe that smirk off your face. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Smirk? Me? I’m thinking maybe I need to start writing a new romance serial.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on, can’t you see it: The Bastard Prince saves Ferelden from the Blight and embraces his birthright. After ten lonely years, the King finds salvation in the arms of a woman who holds the power of the skies in her hand. It’d fly off the shelves.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Suit yourself, _Herald of Andraste_ , but I think you’re sunk.”

He trotted up between Blackwall and Dorian to mediate. “Sparkler has a point . . .”

-

“I don’t want to go to Haven any more than I wanted to return to Redcliffe,” Connor told Alistair. “The Veil is torn open. There’ll be abominations.”

“There are already mages and Templars working side by side there. It’s as safe as anywhere else. If you need anything, find Lady Trevelyan – she’ll help you.”

“The two of you discussed me? I don’t want that kind of attention.”

“She’s available day or night, any time you need her. You can trust Margie, I promise.”

Connor crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

“Margie?”

“Uh, Lady Trevelyan is an honorable sort.”

“Whatever, Alistair. Seeing as you’ve exiled us mages, I’ll go with Fiona and _Margie_.”

He turned to mount his horse, but Alistair grabbed his elbow.

“Hey, Connor. I love you. Please don’t hate me just because I’m an ass who mucked things up.”

“It’s okay, man.”

Conner turned back to hug him.

Alistair could smell the Fade in his collar, feel the magic tingling along his hands, and hear it humming from within him. He could level Redcliffe Village with just a flick of his wrist, but Connor never displayed any power beyond that required for duties within the Circle. Alistair doubted even Fiona knew of Connor’s strength. And he’d never made another mistake in the last ten years: not so much as a singed eyebrow since he joined the Circle.

Alistair gave him a friendly slap on the back and Connor mounted his horse and joined the other mages riding for Haven. Long after the dust had settled behind them, Alistair watched the point where Connor had crossed the horizon.

He was again alone, apart from the three people he loved most in the world, two of them flying head-long toward the Breach.

Alistair returned to his tent to write Teagan a personal note. Redcliffe needed the Arl back. After sending his swiftest courier riding back toward Denerim, the King sat down to write another letter to another old friend who was a veteran of the fifth Blight.

Perhaps Leliana had some answers for him.


	4. Fires in Haven

 “At least this time I didn’t get knocked on my ass—just to my knees.”

“You did well,” Cassandra said.

The Breach was closed. The Herald hadn’t been knocked unconscious this time, either because she was stronger, or because she’d had a half-dozen mages standing behind her, channeling their mana through her.

It was late and dark, but no one was in bed. Margie stood in front of the Haven chantry with the Seeker, watching Minaeve and Seggrit dance around the campfire while Adan chugged mead and laughed at his own jokes. The entire village was celebrating, but the Herald was uneasy.

“We still don’t know who murdered The Divine, or where they’ll strike next. And, _shit_ —” She saw a watch guard racing across the yard toward Commander Cullen. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

The watch clanged the alarm bells and Cullen shouted “To arms!”

The revelers screamed and scattered, bolting themselves in log outbuildings that would never survive an assault. Every soldier and free mage in Haven ran for the gate.

“I’m Cole, I came to help!”

A strange boy in a wide-brimmed hat met them at the gate, but they didn’t need his warning to see what was coming: A massive force streamed down the mountain, visible only as thousands of orange torches that rushed through the night toward Haven.

At the top of the nearest rise appeared a tall darkspawn creature with the face of a man. Red lyrium protruded from his neck and face and he wore time-ravaged Tevinter robes. Next to him stood a grim, emaciated Templar in heavy armor: Samson. His black hair was thinning and lank, his pallid face tinged with yellow.

The next hour was a blur of whirling daggers and ducking swords. A well-placed trebuchet shot caused a snow slide and slowed the invaders, but they kept coming. Red Templars torched the outbuildings, noncombatants still inside. Margie and Cassandra broke down doors and pulled people out while Varric and Solas kept the encroaching forces at bay.

“That’s everybody! Let’s move!”

The Herald was the last to run into the stone chantry building before Cullen’s men braced the wood door. Within a minute, she was dashing out again with Cassandra, Varric, and Solas, while the rest of Haven’s survivors snuck out the back door and up the pilgrimage path. Chancellor Roderick leaned on Cole, urging the refugees on ahead. He’d suffered a deep abdominal stab wound. Roderick would be dead before they found a place to make camp—if they escaped at all.

The dirt and snow ran with blood as richly red as the cliffs of the Hinterlands. The invaders and refugees bled alike, all of it looked the same mingled together in the mud.

Parry, duck, stab, twin fangs.

Chaos filled Margie’s mind. Her body moved without thought.

Some of the troops weren’t people. They were grey monsters with red eyes. They roared and shot purple lightning out of their hands, electrifying their human comrades and transforming them into more red-eyed monsters.

She didn’t have time to be afraid. Didn’t have time to pause or gape.

Parry, duck, stab, twin fangs.

Margie and Varric tossed Antivan Fire and a jar of bees at the same time, finishing off the last of the smaller monsters and a Behemoth.

“Help me turn the trebuchet! We’ve got to bury the path so they can’t follow the refugees.” Margie pulled on the top of the wheel, Varric on the bottom. Cassandra and Solas flanked them, weapons out, watching for any Red Templar stragglers.

A red dragon roared in the air.

“Shit. Move! Run! I’ll catch up.”

The Herald shoved her friends toward the pilgrimage path and turned to face the dragon and darkspawn creature alone.

-

Along with the whispers in his head, Alistair’s dreams had started again. For months, he’d had a few dreams a week, seen himself at Duncan’s side in the Deep Roads, in one last battle that killed them both.

He knew it was the Calling and not warning of a new Blight, for he never dreamed of an archdemon—just dying with Duncan.

“It was a boon from Andraste!” A woman’s voice broke through and reverberated off The Stone.

_Margie?_

His dream flashed from the Deep Roads to Haven, where he and the Hero had encountered a different set of cultists ten years before. Now fires roared through the buildings, rivers of blood ran through melting snow, and a lone woman was on her hands and knees on the ground, her right hand gripping her left wrist as violent green rift magic fizzled across her left palm.

The rest of it played as a silent blur in his dream. A dragon—it carried the taint, but didn’t feel like an archdemon—circled her like a hyena circles a lame calf and a darkspawn with a man’s deformed face stood over her. She scrambled to her feet, picked up a sword.

He still couldn’t hear what they said.

She looked to her feet as though despairing, but then a flare shot up from behind the tree line and she straightened with a grin.

“Here’s your prize!”

She kicked loose the counterweight on the trebuchet and ran. The trebuchet’s boulder hit the mountainside and Haven was washed away in a landslide of rock, snow, trees, and ash.

Alistair yanked himself out of the dream. He pulled on breeches and an oversized tunic as he ran from his private chambers, shouting for his steward.

“Hill! Wake my fastest rider!”

-

Margie surreptitiously eyed a jagged hole broken in the fencing around the trebuchet stand. Just below it was the gaping mouth of a dark underground cavern. Maybe it was another way to the pilgrimage path.

Or a dead end.

_Keep talking, asshole._

Every moment the darkspawn Magister monologued was another step the refugees made away from the dragon.

She had never felt such joy as when she saw Cullen’s flare over the treetops to show they had made minimum safe distance.

Time to bury Haven.

And perhaps herself with it.

A fresh rush of adrenaline coursed through her as she zinged one last taunt at her enemy.

“You expect me to fight, but that’s not why I kept you talking. Enjoy your victory. _Here’s your prize_!”

She kicked loose the counterweight on the trebuchet and ran.

Margie leapt headfirst toward the mouth of the cave. Only one person was in her thoughts before she was enveloped by darkness.

" _Alistair_."

-

“Ride with all haste to the next courier station and pass this to a fresh rider. Get it in the hands of the Captain stationed nearest Haven.”

Alistair wrote a hurried letter by candle light on a rickety wood table in the stables while his fastest rider saddled the fastest horse. The steward heated the end of a stick of red wax over the candle and handed it to the King. Alistair rolled the letter, dripped the wax on the edge of the parchment, and imprinted the seal with his ring before it hardened.

He personally handed it to the rider.

“Don’t stop, don’t rest until the message rides with a fresh rider and mount. Relay that instruction to the next courier.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

She genuflected, fist over her heart. The courier turned, mounted, and took off with the fluid grace of someone born in the saddle. She didn’t need to say anything or kick her horse. The two were in motion with no sound other than hooves and they quickly disappeared over the night-cloaked horizon.

Alistair stood with his steward. The courtyard was silent except for their breathing and the flicker of torches burning on posts at both ends of the stable. Guards patrolled the battlements and yard with no conversation. It wasn’t even time yet for the midnight watch.

“Shall I prepare refreshments for your parlor, Sire?”

“No, thank you. Please sleep some more if you can.”

“May I also recommend the same for you, Your Majesty?”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep again.”

The steward left the King alone in the courtyard, staring up at the starless sky, tonight a sky devoid of even a single buzzing insect. Alistair wished to hear the rustle of feathers of a Denerim homing pigeon heralding news from Haven. He knew it wouldn’t happen, but he watched the black heavens and wished for it anyway.

Leliana had a flock of Denerim pigeons she used to send him news. Since she’d become Left Hand of the Divine, the messages had been less detailed, but just as regular, even after she and Lady Pentaghast had declared the Inquisition reborn.

When couriers picked up pigeons to take them in crates on a wagon to Leliana, they left with Alistair a different kind of bird: some sort of black raven they wouldn’t name. The birds had a red crest between their eyes and knew how to find Leliana no matter where she was. How such a bond was possible without magic, Alistair had no idea, and Leliana wouldn’t reveal the secret.

Even if people had escaped the raid, all the caged livestock in Haven, along with his Denerim homing pigeons, were probably buried under a ton of bloodied snow. Dead.

And Alistair didn’t have any of Leliana’s birds left. He had sent the last one to her with a letter after he returned from Redcliffe. He had detailed his meeting with the Herald—minus the more personal declaration he had made by his campfire—said he had great admiration for her, and assured Leliana that Arl Teagan was back in Redcliffe with an additional company of guards on loan from the crown.

Now he would have traded any one of the past ten years’ correspondence to send her a single sentence.

_Leliana, does the Herald yet live?_

Without answers, Alistair trudged back up to his bedroom and stood on the balcony overlooking his rose gardens.

He sighed and reached behind his neck with both hands to unclasp the chain holding his gold locket. He hadn’t removed it in ten years, not even when he bathed alone or sparred with his guard in the ring. Yet the clasp opened as easily as it had when he first put it on.

He went to his wardrobe and found a small wooden box covered with an exquisite carving of a griffin in flight. The box easily fit in the palm of his hand and the interior was lined with Royale Sea Silk.

Alistair opened the hinged lid, gently placed the locket inside, and returned the box to his wardrobe.

“Goodbye, Kate.”


	5. Alone in the dark

“Ur-ngh.”

Margie slowly regained her senses. Everything hurt. Tumbling down into a mountain cavern after hours of intense combat felt worse than getting bowled over by Druffy when Solas accidentally spooked him with chain lightning. Not as bad as getting punched by a giant, but bad.

Pain was good, meant she was alive.

Everything was black. She couldn’t see. Panic welled up in her chest.

_Maker, am I blind?_

She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on her breathing, willing the panic away, but it spread and intensified. Her breaths got shorter and harder. She whimpered and writhed on the rough stone of the cave floor, then rolled onto her side and curled her knees up to her chest. A shivering sob broke from her lips.

Slowly through her closed eyelids she became aware of a growing green light. Margie tentatively peeked and saw a beacon of light growing steadily from her left palm. Soon the cavern was as bright as the Breach, and she saw it was a tunnel tilted in the direction of the chantry building and pilgrimage path.

_I can see. I can move. There’s a way out._

Without her immediate survival threatened, she could think clearly again. The first thing that came to her mind wasn’t a travel plan, but a person.

“Alistair,” she whispered.

That little whisper was the catalyst she needed. She eased to a sitting position, then her hands and knees, then slowly rose to her feet. A twinge made her reach for her belly, but everything seemed to be intact. No broken bones or sprains, no gushing wounds. Her feet and ankles were no more sore than they were after closing a Fade rift.

She could walk.

She probably had a concussion—she had, after all, been knocked out three times since the conclave explosion—but it didn’t take much brain power to put one foot in front of the other. Surely this tunnel led to the pilgrimage path.

She stumbled onward, but was brought up short when a whisp and two despair demons popped up in front of her. One threw ice toward her. She instinctively threw her left arm up to protect her face and the Mark flared forth a ball of green light over her head. The demons shrieked and melted into thin air.

“Well, that’s a new trick.”

_Looks like I still have some humor, too. Maybe I’ll survive after all._

_Or not._

Beyond the cavern exit a blizzard raged. If she stayed in the cave with no fuel, she’d freeze to death in less than an hour. If she left now, she might be able to catch up with Haven’s other survivors. She was injured, but still thought she could move faster than a group of civilian refugees carting everything they could salvage.

With no hat or scarf, only one glove, and waterproof boots that still let snow in because the drifts were almost up to her knees, the Herald of Andraste plunged out into the whiteout, hoping that the tall shadow in front of her was the peak Chancellor Roderick said marked the pilgrimage path.

-

Margie dreamed of an endless white wind that ate her body and left her soul to wander.

She jolted awake to see Mother Giselle sitting by her cot. She vaguely remembered stumbling past the embers of an abandoned fire near a gap in the mountain wall. Yellow light from a fire flickered just out of reach. She’d fallen to her knees and lost consciousness.

Wait, she hadn’t checked out before a blurry group of people ran up—someone had carried her? She could remember firm arms, a gentle touch, a leather tunic lined with chainmail, an ashen purple hood.

“Leliana carried me?” Her voice cracked, but was stronger than the whisper she managed in the cave.

“Hush, you need your rest. Just a sip of water to keep you hydrated, then sleep some more.”

Mother Giselle slipped a hand beneath Margie’s neck and helped her take a drink from a water skin.

“It’s good not to be dead,” she managed before plunging down into a dreamless sleep.

-

“Great, more of that white shit.”

After nearly being buried alive in it, Margie had decided she hated snow. Now she trudged up a snow-covered ridge, Varric at her side, the refugees and Inquisition agents trailing behind with carts and brontos. The storm was long gone. Sparse fluffy clouds sat in a powder blue sky and the bright yellow sun glared on the snow, making everyone squint.

“How far to this imaginary stronghold Chuckles told you about?”

“Another day’s journey north, I think.” She looked over her shoulder. “Maybe two, considering how fast we’ve moved today.”

She plopped her ass down on a boulder—despite the sun, it was ice cold, but blessedly free of snow—and watched her followers’ progress. When they were within earshot, she shouted down to Cullen that everyone should take their mid-day rest and meal.

Leliana bent down to remove a blanket from over a cage on one of the wagons.

“What’s she doing?” Margie asked.

“Oh, Denerim homing pigeons. The Nightingale and the King exchange correspondence pretty regularly.”

“Alistair writes Leliana?”

When Varric didn’t answer, she turned to look at him and found him smirking.

“‘ _Alistair._ ’ Still don’t know what I’m talking about?”

In a rush, Margie remembered how he teased her on the ride home from Redcliffe.

“Well, I maybe have an inkling—but don’t go putting us in one of your bodice rippers: nothing happened!”

“Nothing’s happened yet.” Varric grinned. “Or, maybe something did happen and you just haven’t shared it.”

_Yeah, the King shared his food and fire with me. Alistair told me he loved me._

No way was she going to share that.

“Shall I ask the Spymaster what the King has to say about you?”

“No!”

Varric raised an eyebrow.

“Wait, yes, um, if you can do it discretely.”

-

“Your Majesty, should I tell the Teyrn that you’re resting?”

“No, show him to my parlor and I’ll be there shortly.”

The steward bowed and left. Alistair rubbed at the purple shadows under his eyes and pushed aside the field reports he’d been staring at without seeing. He kept his personal desk in his bedroom and the King’s parlor for important guests was just down the hall.

Fergus Cousland, Teyrn of Highever, had just arrived and was to be his guest for the next few days while they negotiated trade deals and troop assignments. They met every year to do so.

Fergus was brown and bearded while Kate had been blonde, but they had shared the same green eyes and he had the same quick wit as his sister. The musicality of their laugh was even the same.

This would be the first time a meeting with Fergus didn’t break Alistair’s heart.

As he approached the parlor, a runner rushed up with a letter.

“From the Captain, Sire. I was told to interrupt whatever meeting or sleep to deliver it.”

“Thank you. Take your meal early and rest while you may.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Once he was alone in the hall, Alistair broke the seal on the letter. His hands trembled. It had only been three days and the Captain could not have received his own message until this morning. This one had probably been written while Alistair’s message was en route.

_To King Alistair Theirin, protector of the people of Ferelden, long may He live and reign,_

_I have reports from local hunters that rogue Templars raided Haven and the refugees have fled further up the mountains. The status of the Inquisition and its Herald are unknown.  I will investigate at once._

_Ever in Your service,  
Captain Fenn_

He re-read the letter three times, hoping for further clues regarding Margie’s fate and finding none. Still clutching the letter, his hand fell to his side where he stood outside the parlor door and he stared unseeing, unthinking, barely breathing for several minutes, until the echo of swift footsteps roused him.

Another runner approached, this one with a little silver cylinder taken from the leg of a homing pigeon.

“Sire, you have a message from Sister Nightingale.”

Wordlessly, Alistair thrust out his open hand to take the cylinder, dropped the Captain’s letter to the floor, and yanked the tiny scrap of parchment out of the container.

_We live. Scouting north for a keep called Skyhold._

It was Leliana’s strong, fluid handwriting. And, judging from the slant of her ells, she had been happy and in the sunshine when she wrote the message.

_We live._

It was dated the day _after_ his dream.

Alistair smiled for the first time since he bade Margie and Connor farewell. He waved the runner off and turned to enter the parlor.

“Fergus, welcome.” Fergus was the only person Alistair hugged, other than Teagan and Connor.

“Alistair, I’m so pleased you and the Arl of Redcliffe are safely home again. You look tired, but well. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so happy. Have you good news about the war?”

“Not exactly, my friend. Haven was attacked again. Most of the refugees escaped, along with their supporters. Our western neighbor is still embroiled in a civil war and militant factions continue to harry us at home.

“It’s a particular person who has made me smile today.”

“What’s she like?”

“Who said it was a woman who made me happy?”

“Come, now, Alistair, even the blind could see how you’ve mourned since my sister’s funeral. It’s in your eyes every time we meet, when I laugh at your raunchy jokes—terrible jokes I’m sure you also shared with Kate.

“ _Tell me_ about her. What’s she like?”

Fergus’ green eyes sparkled with mischief and Alistair found himself mirroring his grin.

“Her compassion and grace are endless. Her skill in battle is matched only by her wit. Her passion for justice—”

Fergus laughed.

“What?”

“You sound like an advertisement for a Thethras novel.”

“Maker’s breath, you don’t think he’ll get wind of this, do you? Margie . . .”

“Margie?”

“Uh, Lady Margaret Trevelyan of Ostwick.”

“A Marcher. _The_ Herald? You’ve gone and fallen in love with the Herald of Andraste.”

“Yes.”

“Is she a blonde, green-eyed rogue?”

“Ye-yeeessss. Is that a problem?”

Fergus chuckled and slapped him on the back.

“Alistair, it’s about damn time.”


	6. Dreams, dragons, and rendezvous

“How long is this operation going to take?”

Margie was in the middle of a war table meeting when she’d rather just ride out and seal rifts until Hawke’s Warden friend got them further details on the rogue Wardens helping “Coriphey-spit” raise a demon army to invade Orlais.

They were settled in Skyhold, more refugees and pilgrims poured in daily, and Margie was frustrated that no progress had been made to thwart The Elder One’s plan to usurp the heavens, enslave the world, and lay waste to Thedas.

 _I’m the_ Inquisitor _now, for Andraste’s sake. Why don’t I have more effective power?_

“Can’t I just authorize everything I want done and collect the reports when I get home? Do you really need me to authorize them individually”—she picked up a mission report—“and why, for Andraste’s sake, did this take longer to transport ten miles across Ferelden than it took me to establish all our camps in the Hissing Wastes?

“It’s almost enough to make me go down to the dungeon and ask Alexius how he got that time travel shit to work.”

Cullen flinched and Leliana chuckled.

“Anyway, let’s review what support our forces will need at Adamant. As soon as we receive those trebuchets Josephine secured, I want to move on the Wardens.”

After the meeting, Margie headed to the tavern for dinner. First she checked in with Cole, Sera, Bull, Krem, and Sutherland. Sera joined her for a pint and tried to regale her with a story about how she’d removed the hinge pins from somebody’s door, but Margie was only half-listening, her thoughts elsewhere.

_Grey Wardens are murdering their comrades to bind demons._

What was it Solas had said? “Some bizarre attempt to preempt the Blight”: Use demons to hunt down and destroy all the old gods in the Deep Roads to prevent another archdemon from ever appearing. The Orlesian Warden Commander was desperate and a Tevinter mage had convinced her this was the only way to save the world before the Calling killed all Wardens.

A false Calling caused by Corypheus, who wanted the Warden mages mindlessly bound to demons he could use to devastate Orlais and conquer all of Thedas, including Ferelden.

Ferelden.

_Does Alistair hear the whispers, too?_

-

He was kneeling at Duncan’s side, his tears falling on the gaping hole in Duncan’s chest. The dead Warden’s eyes and mouth gaped upward into the boiling red sky. The orc-crushed body of King Cailan Theirin, Alistair’s half-brother, lay next to Duncan, their blood mingled in a pool that grew to drown the entire field of battle.

_I wasn’t with Duncan. I was lighting the beacon. Arrows in me—in us—Kate!_

_Flemeth says we’re the only two left._

_We killed Flemeth. Morrigan left us._

_This is a dream._

Alistair pulled his mind from the Fade to look at the fresco ceiling of his bedroom in his Denerim fortress. He was soaked in sweat, the sheets sticking to his bare hips. A breeze brushed past the open balcony doors to make him shiver.

He was awake, but still heard the whisper of the Calling.

_The time approaches._

“Not yet.”

He refreshed himself with a fresh cloth and the tepid water in a stone bowl on his toiletry stand and dressed.

He looked out the open doors just as a pigeon flew by.

“Not yet.”

Alistair went down to pigeon handler’s hut next to the stables. The bird carried a fresh note from Leliana.

_It’s fake. Don’t listen to the Calling. Details following by courier._

A fake Calling? As glad as he was to not be dying, a new fear gripped him. What kind of malicious power had the strength to do such a thing? Why was it even possible? He’d been concerned about the missing Wardens, but had assumed they were scattered to recruit for Weisshaupt. Alistair seemed to be the last Warden in Ferelden, and, with no Blight, they couldn’t conscript, only recruit. They were _all_ hearing the Calling? How many listened? How many were taking The Long Walk right now?

“Maker, if we all go to die in the Deep Roads, no one will be left to stop the next Blight.”

-

Stroud was gone.

 “He didn’t make it.”

The Inquisitor didn’t tell the surviving Wardens that she’d left Stroud to die alone with a Nightmare demon. Only she could close rifts, or she would have stayed herself and sent everyone back with a message for Leliana: _You must be Inquisitor now. Tell him I love him._

Leliana was smart. She would know of whom the Herald spoke.

But Margie had chosen Varric’s friend over Hawke’s friend, and now Hawke lived while the Inquisitor had sacrificed the only Warden who had recognized the false Calling for what it was and brought Corypheus’ plan to light.

Even when the price was too high, you sometimes had to pay it.

It was small consolation to ally with the surviving Wardens. No one of significant rank remained and they were all susceptible to Corypheus’ mind games. Plus, Solas and Cole were now grumpy with her for not exiling them.

“Exiling them where we couldn’t keep an eye on them? How is that a good idea, Solas? I won’t use a future Blight as an excuse, but I also won’t send potential trouble elsewhere. They’re staying and we’ll be as polite and responsible as we can about it.”

Margie spurred her horse ahead to ride the rest of the way home with The Iron Bull, who _had_ been very pleased with the Warden alliance, though he’d been ticked to get dragged through the ass-end of demon town. Nobody sane liked to physically enter the Fade, a feat she hoped to never accomplish again.

“How’s it goin’, Boss?”

“Every time I forget Solas can be a jerk, he reminds me.”

“But you still respect each other. It’s good you two can be so honest.”

“Says the Qunari spy.”

“The spy who shares all his reports with you.”

“All of them?”

“Yup.”

“Okay, I hear a request coming. You want something.”

He grinned and turned to show her the eye that wasn’t covered by his eyepatch.

“That dragon Frederic told us about: we’ve got the bait for it. Knight-Captain Rylen’s men would be safer if we rid them of the pest.”

“ _Pest?!”_ Margie laughed. “Bull, a varghest is a pest. The Abyssal High Dragon is . . .”

“Fun.”

“Fine, we’ll take out the dragon on the way home.”

“You may want to craft some silverite armor at the keep first.”

“Definitely.”

-

The dragon detour delayed the Inquisitor’s return to Skyhold by less than a day, and Josephine was still deep in negotiations to get them an invitation to the peace talks in Orlais.

The ambassador clasped her hands together and fretted. With the demon army plan squashed, Corypheus might move to assassinate Empress Celene before the Inquisition could see her at the Winter Palace in Halamshiral.

“Don’t worry, Josephine. We’ll save the Empress.”

Margie authorized some war table operations, turned in research items, and chatted with Varric, Solas, Dorian, and Leliana, who had news.

“This just arrived from Denerim. When I saw your title on the outer side of the parchment, I did not look further.”

Leliana handed Margie a small silver cylinder from the leg of one of her special black-and-red birds. It was larger than the tiny container that fit on the leg of the Denerim homing pigeons, large enough to hold a real letter, not just a scrap of a message. Margie slid the parchment out of the cylinder to reveal _Inquisitor_ written on the back. She didn’t recognize the solid, clear handwriting.

“Judging from the way he slanted the I and the en, I think he was happy when he wrote this,” Leliana’s lips twitched with amusement.

Margie carefully unrolled the parchment, raised it so the candlelight shone through, and read the first message her love had ever crafted just for her.

_Beloved Margie,_

_I will be in Lothering for troop inspections on the 26th. Can I see you?_

_All my Love,  
Alistair_

Short, sweet. Direct. He didn’t say _can we meet_ or _let’s discuss matters of state_ , or _Dear Inquisitor Trevelyan_. It was a personal message, specifically for her, all about her. He called her beloved. An unfamiliar, totally fabulous feeling welled up, filling her heart, chest, and throat.

_Can I see you?_

She swallowed a chuckle, thinking about how the King of Ferelden was using troop inspections as an excuse to plan a rendezvous with the Inquisitor. She knew very well his regional captain usually handled troop inspections.

Eyes wide, sparking with joy, she pressed the letter to her chest and looked up at her Spymaster.

“Leliana,” she didn’t care that this new emotion in her chest made her voice breathy, “may I borrow one of your Denerim homing pigeons?”

Leliana grinned, but retained her formal way of speaking.

“Of course, Your Worship.”

Still holding Alistair’s letter to her chest with her left hand, Margie used her right to grab from Leliana’s desk a quill and scrap of parchment small enough for the smaller bird’s cylinder. She wrote a single word, three letters.

To free both hands for rolling her own message, she tucked Alistair’s letter in her jacket’s inner pocket closest to her heart. By the time she had her parchment scrap rolled and safely capped within its container, Leliana had eased a pigeon from the crate, wings cradled gently to its sides, and held it steady for Margie to attach the cylinder to its leg.

Margie opened the door so the two women could step out on the balcony. Leliana lifted her arms, released the bird, and the Inquisitor’s message was winging its way to the King.

-

_Yes._

“Oh, Margie, you’re killing me,” Alistair groaned and leaned his head back on the cold stone wall of his personal quarters, glad he’d waited to read her message until he’d come upstairs. The sight of just that one little word in flowing script had lust coursing through every cell in his body.

Her response had come so quick, so direct, that he could have set the date a week earlier and not missed her reply. Or even three days hence.

He groaned again and abandoned any hope of being able to concentrate on field reports. He hoped a workout in the sparring ring would knock some sense into him and diffuse his raging libido. It would take a lot of exercise, every guardsman he had—and maybe that wouldn’t be enough.

To keep it clean while he got grubby, Alistair tucked her note under the candle holder on his bedside table and went down to the yard with his sword and shield.

“Your Majesty,” the Captain jumped up from oiling his blade. “Morning drills are complete.”

“Summon everyone not on duty. I’m offering a bag of gold to any one or team who can take me down in under five minutes.”

“No one’s ever beaten you, Sire.”

“I want you to try.”

The Captain gulped and his sword arm shook, but he held his voice steady.

“As you command, Your Majesty.”

Three hours later, Alistair stumbled back to his room, undefeated. He’d timed it so the contest continued through the watch change and every one of his guards stationed at the fortress had tried to take him, and failed.

A steaming copper tub sat in front of his fireplace, where a steady crackling fire was built up tall. He hadn’t thought to ask for it, but his steward thought of everything.

“Bless you, Hill.”

Alistair stripped and sank down into the steaming water, hissing through his teeth as the hot water covered bruises and scratches. Then he sighed and leaned back. His eyes flicked toward his bedside table where Margie’s note rested exactly where he’d left it.

“Damn, I’m still horny.”


	7. A door with no lock

“Why are we making the blood lotus pick up ourselves when we could send agents to do it?” Cassandra asked. They were in the northeastern quadrant of the Hinterlands, headed north for Lothering.

“Because we can carry more than they can and there are still reports of rifts in the area and I think it’s safer if we handle it.”

“Safer?” Cassandra sounded even more puzzled.

Varric snorted.

“What she means is she got a love note from the King and wants to sneak off to see him.”

Dorian chuckled. “Was it a naughty letter?”

“I simply received word that King Alistair would be within an hour’s ride of our next stop and he would welcome an update from Inquisition agents. Certainly we can afford Ferelden’s monarch such a courtesy.”

Varric and Dorian sniggered and fell behind the two women to gossip in undertones. Cassandra blushed and sent Margie a shy smile.

_Dear Maker, the Seeker is a romantic. This story is going to be all over Skyhold when we get home._

It was barely mid-day when the Inquisitor and her companions rode into Lothering to find the King and his guard had already pitched their tents a short distance from the standing troops camp King Alistair kept supplied there.

Darkspawn had overrun the town ten years ago, shortly after Warden Alistair and his friends had left it on a quest to find a miracle to heal Arl Eamon from some mysterious illness. Though the surrounding area remained desolate, a rickety tavern, inn, and stable had popped up here again in recent years, and Alistair had commissioned a sturdy stone guardhouse at the beginning of the mage-templar war, planning to camp a rotation of troops nearby for easy deployment should things go amiss here or in Orlais.

It wasn’t as lush as the Emerald Graves, but it was a damned sight better than the Exalted Plains, and the native Ferelden troops probably found it downright homey.

As Margie’s party approached, various soldiers looked up from their tasks to hail the visitors. They were expected and no one interrupted their progress. They dismounted and entrusted their horses to the stable hands.

As they exited the stable, Alistair came out of the guard house. His hair reflected the sun like polished gold and the smile he sent her was more devastating than any—well, anything.

She was sunk.

 “Come on Sparkler, Seeker, I’ll buy you a pint,” Varric said, and the three headed for the tavern.

Margie tried not to gawk like a teenager. She knew she was grinning like a fool. That full feeling was in her chest again. With as much grace and dignity she could muster, she crossed the yard to meet him in front of the guardhouse where he waited for her, his grey eyes flecked with gold and shining with admiration.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

She probably should have called him Your Majesty. He probably should have called her Inquisitor. Or Lady Trevelyan.

Maker, it was like being twelve again, not knowing how to talk to boys, but oh so much more intense and important and real—for Alistair was a grown man, a seasoned war hero, and King of Ferelden.

And she didn’t care. She would want him if he was the horsemaster or the cook or a farmer . . .

“Would you like to come in?”

“Yes.”

-

Maker’s breath, how could he have forgotten how beautiful she was? He’d wanted to hear her voice, share her time and worries, and, yes, maybe steal a kiss, but she was more fair and powerful than any princess or queen in any of the paintings hanging in his fortress in Denerim.

“Hi.”

He probably should give her the honor of her title, but it was wiped from his mind. This woman filled him with awe. No girl or woman he’d ever met had tied his tongue so. None.

“Would you like to come in?”

“Yes.”

He bowed her into the empty guardhouse, which was just a stone rectangle with a thatched roof sheltering rectangular wood tables and a few bunks. Sunlight streamed through an opaque set of coarse checkered curtains hung over the thick, dirty window. Dust danced in the sunbeam and the dirt floor muffled their footsteps. He turned to face her.

They were finally alone.

“I missed you.”

He took her gloveless hand in his own and marveled at her warmth, thread his fingers through hers, felt a spasm of joy in his chest when she squeezed back. She raised her green gaze to meet his grey one.

“I missed you too, Alistair.”

She slowly lifted her gloved hand to the back of his neck, the cool leather shooting electric jolts of pleasure down his spine. He wanted to close his eyes, lean back, and revel in that touch, but he held her gaze and waited.

She stepped forward, leaned up, and kissed him.

No tempest had ever held such power. Just a light brushing of her lips warmed him to the bone, spun his mind in a whirlwind.

She pressed in further, her full lips moistening his and opening to request entry. He groaned, opened his mouth and met her tongue with his own. How could it be so powerful and slow, joyful and savory at the same time? Her mouth made love with his at a deliberate pace that melted him.

Still locked together, she gently shuffled him backward to press his back against the wall, where he felt the cool stone through his jerkin, while the blaze of her body heated his front. She eased her right leg between his and pushed up against his erection, drawing from him a wordless cry into her open mouth.

He released her hand to use both his hands to grip her buttocks, press her closer, and slip his left leg flush and hard between her legs. She fisted both hands, one bare, one gloved, in his hair and lost all patience. Deliberate pace gone, she ravaged: nipped his lower lip, licked his collar bone, and pulled loose his shirt collar with her teeth.

Two sharp knocks sounded on the closed wood door before it swung open and a King’s soldier rushed in and knelt with a fist to his shoulder.

“Inquisitor, a massive rift just opened over the hill and—” he looked up and sprung to his feet. “Your Majesty! I didn’t know you were in here.”

Alistair and Margie had each leaned back in surprise when the door opened, but he still had his hands on her hips and she had her hands on his shoulders. Her hair was mussed, her face flushed, her lips plumped. He was sure he looked the same.

Margie dissolved in giggles and pressed her face into his shirt.

“It’s okay, Lieutenant,” Alistair said, “I know you work for Sister Nightingale.”

“Sire!” The King’s soldier bowed and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

They still held each other, just more lightly now.

“I don’t suppose that leaves us time to claim a bunk?” Alistair nodded toward the guards’ beds.

“No lock on the door,” she gasped out, still laughing.

“Maybe there’s a room at the inn,” he offered.

She placed a subdued kiss on his lips and eased back, running her gloved hand down his throat, chest, and down, pressing below his belt line and making his vision go glassy.

She whispered in his ear, “Next time, find us a bed and a door with a lock.”

Margie kissed his cheek and left the guardhouse, closing the door behind her.

Alistair needed a moment to compose himself before going out. He needed several moments.

Maybe even a lifetime.


	8. Mages and machinations

Margie loitered alone in a stone hallway, examining paintings of Alistair’s kin. A once-wealthy pilgrim had recently arrived at Skyhold, risking death in the snow to preserve the last paintings of his private collection—paintings he donated to the Inquisition to express his thanks for saving his mage daughter at Redcliffe.

The Painting of the Rebel Queen depicted Alistair’s grandmother with fiery red hair, but Margie knew Queen Moira had been as blonde as Alistair, shining like the sun as she charged into battle in heavy armor. The charismatic Moira had inspired the rebellion against the Orlesian occupation of Ferelden. Assassins killed her, leaving her son Maric to preserve Ferelden’s independence.

Maric did so with the help of his friend Loghain, who was later so paranoid about the Orlesians—and distrustful of the Grey Wardens—he deserted Maric’s son Cailan, Loghain’s own son-in-law, to die amongst darkspawn at Ostagar. To cover it up, Loghain hired the Antivan Crows to assassinate Alistair and Katherine. The crows died and the last two Wardens survived—until Lady Cousland gave her life battling the archdemon at Fort Drakon.

If Loghain had succeeded and crowned himself king, the Blight would have wiped out Ferelden.

Beside Moira, the paintings of Maric and Cailan were similarly dashing depictions of young kings in their golden glory on rearing white battle steeds. It was the softer, more subtle portrait of Alistair that captivated Margie.

“If I didn’t already love him, this would do it,” she murmured.

The artist had captured Alistair’s humor and sadness in equal measure, meticulously detailing the gold flecks in grey eyes that stared steadily out from the canvas, right into her soul. The image was a close up showing his shoulders and head. He wore gold royal armor with no helm. All the colors were muted, the lines not quite sharp, though his profile was perfectly clear.

What interested her most was a little detail, easily missed against the gold backdrop of his armor: A tiny gold locket on a gold chain. She leaned closer. She’d seen him wearing a thin gold chain in Redcliffe, but whatever it held had been hidden inside his shirtfront. Now she could see it was an emblem of Andraste's Flame, riddled with cracks where someone had glued it back together. Such painstaking detail broke her heart. She offered up a prayer for the painter.

“That’s my favorite, too.”

She startled and turned to find Connor standing a few feet away. When she gave him an encouraging smile, he moved to stand by her.

“The woman who painted it died at the conclave.”

“I’m sorry, Connor. Was she a friend of yours?”

“Not precisely. We were colleagues, though she was better with a paintbrush than a staff. Her magic was a great capacity to love, which flowed into her art. She couldn’t really cast spells, not even light a fire or heal a small cut. I think she passed her harrowing because she _wasn’t_ strong enough to entice a demon.

“I don’t think the Circle was necessary for her.”

_But you think it is for you. After ten years of peace, why do you think you’re still such a danger?_

She didn’t want to spook him.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t think there’s anything more to say.”

Margie reached toward the portrait, but caught herself before touching it.

“This locket . . .”

“It was his mother’s. Lady Cousland found it in my father’s study, gifted it to Alistair while they journeyed together.”

“He was wearing it in Redcliffe, but not in Lothering,” she murmured more to herself than to Connor.

He blinked in surprise and turned to watch her watch the painting.

“He hasn’t taken it off since the Blight . . .”

Connor fell silent, probably realizing what Margie already knew: Alistair had worn the locket for Kate, not his mother, and now he didn’t.

-

“Well, well. What have we here?”

As Margie approached Empress Celene’s ballroom, she was greeted by the Empress’ arcane advisor. Despite Leliana’s warning, she liked Morrigan right away. Morrigan was a direct woman and reasonable, though not particularly sentimental.

And she had a key to the servant’s quarters.

-

“Damn, these people are vicious.”

Back from looting evidence and killing Venatori assassins in the servant’s quarters, Margie chatted with Leliana about shoe buckles and dirty little secrets at the grand masquerade at Halamshiral.

“Turn your nose up at The Grande Game if you like, Inquisitor, but we play for keeps—and to the death.”

“It was necessary, but I still feel slimy for accepting the Grand Duke’s invitation to attend as his guest. Gespard has ripped Orlais apart with this civil war to steal his cousin’s throne.”

“She took it from him first,” the Spymaster pointed out.

“And we’re in _her_ palace, at a party hosted by _his_ sister; and Celene’s scorned lady elf lover—who is leader of some vicious spies of her own—is also part of the peace talks that are supposedly going to happen behind the scenes tonight. Oh, Leliana, how do you keep it all straight, and without vomiting?”

“These are just the first, easiest steps of the deadly dance, Inquisitor,” Leliana’s lips twitched, “but I think you’re about to be invited for more.”

The Grande Duchess approached Lady Trevelyan and asked her to dance. And she curtsied—even Margie knew Florianne shouldn’t curtsey to anyone other than the Empress.

_Shit, shit, shit. What was it Josephine said about court approval?_

“Is there something I can do for you, Your Grace?”

She managed to dodge each of Florianne’s verbal traps and get through the dance without stepping on Florianne’s toes or falling on her own face.

Before anyone else could coerce her into another dance, Margie slipped over to her advisors to review her plan to save Celene and get rid of Gespard, then approached the three ladies in waiting. She hoped the trinket she’d found in the servants quarters would help reconcile Celene and Briala, avoiding more bloodshed between elves and humans.

At the words “elven locket,” the ladies in waiting scurried to get her a private balcony audience with the Empress, who denied she still cared for Briala. Margie had a little more luck when she found Briala alone on another balcony, though the elf was just as haughty toward her as the Empress had been.

It was a relief to sneak back into the shadows.

“Come on, Bull, let’s get the others and go trash the Empress’ quarters—I mean, look for evidence about this assassination plot.”

“Right behind you, Boss.”

The rest of the evening was a lot more fun: murderous Venatori, a naked guy chained to Celene’s bed, and the Grande Duchess leaving them in a courtyard with a rift and more Venatori.

"Kill her. Bring me the marked hand as proof."

“That’s it, Bull. The next opportunity I have, I’m killing that bitch.”

“Demons first, Boss.”

Within minutes, she had closed a rift, thwarted a coup attempt, publicly killed the Grande Duchess, and seen the Empress send the Grande Duke off in chains for treason. As soon as Celene and Briala were done spouting their propaganda to the court, Margie snuck out to the shadows of an empty balcony.

She wasn’t alone for long.

“Lady Morrigan, I’m glad to see you. Thanks for that key. Hey, do you want a job?”

-

The day after Alistair returned home, he had a pigeon from Skyhold.

He’d already received the official letter from the Inquisition’s ambassador confirming that Celene retained control over her Empire, the Empress had ordered Gaspard executed, and Margie had stabbed Florianne in front of the whole court. He knew he should be appalled by her resolution of the situation, but, instead, he laughed until he cried.

Now he was giddy to see something written by Margie just for him.

_Danced with the Grande Duchess. Prefer the guardhouse._

-

Margie watched her latest pigeon take wing from Skyhold for Denerim and wished she had Morrigan’s skill for shape-shifting. She’d turn herself into a bird, too, and fly straight to Denerim, into Alistair’s arms.

Too bad the Lothering guardhouse door didn’t have a lock.

Beyond the lustful heat in her belly, there was a yearning just to know he was okay. She missed his voice, his laugh, the way he held her Marked hand like she was precious instead of terrifying. She wanted to find a way for him never to hear the whispers again, even if it cost her life. She wanted him content in a peaceful kingdom he would rule to an impossibly old age.

She wanted that for him more than anything.

And held a sharp, fragile, tiny little hope that she might get to share that life with him.

“Inquisitor,” a messenger approached her on Leliana’s balcony. “Warden Blackwall is missing.”

“Find him.”

-

This visit to Val Royeaux was more grim and trying than the first.

Blackwall, now revealed as Thom Rainier, an Orlesian military captain who had assassinated non-combatants in the name of Gespard before the civil war, rattled the bars of his cell and demanded she leave him there for the hangman’s noose.

“You don’t get to die.” Bile rose in her throat as she struggled with the urge to stab him herself.

“You never pledged yourself to the Wardens, but you did vow to serve the Inquisition and you will atone for leaving your Inquisition post. The Empress is transferring you to Skyhold for judgment.”

She left him weeping.

-

The ride home was pretty quiet. Bull, Varric, and Cassandra let her stew in silence.

Margie didn’t wait to accompany the guard transporting Rainier to Skyhold. It was safest for him that she not be near enough to strangle the murderer who had masqueraded as a Grey Warden.

_No wonder he wasn’t concerned about the Calling. He didn’t even hear it!_

If Leliana hadn’t told her about the Joining, and Stroud not told her about the Calling, Margie would not have known. (It hadn’t exactly come up when she and Alistair were snogging in the guardhouse.) The Inquisition’s resident Warden had been so tight-lipped because he didn’t know squat beyond the vague story some recruiter had sold him before dying in a darkspawn raid.

Back at Skyhold, Margie went straight for the ambassador’s office to get an update. There she found Lady Josephine Montilyet sitting on the hard stone floor in front of her fireplace, sobbing into an arm she had draped over her bent knees.

“Josie,” Margie sank to the floor and wrapped her arms around her, “Whatever is the matter, dear?”

Josephine hiccupped and raised her face to look into the fire.

“I am such a fool.”

“Never.”

“I am. I—” she struggled with trembling lips. “I thought him so strangely charming.”

Dread grew in Margie’s stomach. She held Josephine and waited for her to continue.

“We walked together a few times, shared a meal . . . He—He kissed my hand.” Her voice grew stronger as she poured forth the tale.

“Rainier?”

“Yes. We danced at Halamshiral”—Margie hadn’t seen that—“When we got back, we drank wine. A _lot_ of wine.” Josephine sighed.

“The next morning I woke alone in his hayloft.”

Margie took a deep breath and squeezed Josephine tighter.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Isn’t it?” Her voice was steadier now, showing some Antivan heat. Good. Anger was good. Better than despair.

“I have the knowledge, the connections, just as much as the Spymaster. I myself played bard for a while at court in my young and foolish days. I am no longer a fool. I should have discovered his identity for you at the start.”

“He lied to you, Josie. That’s not your fault.”

“He lied to all of us.”

Margie let her arms fall loose to her sides as Josephine straightened, stood, and brushed invisible dust from the front of her tunic.

“Show him a fair trial, Inquisitor, but do not give him more than that.”


	9. Denerim in the dark

Executing Rainier would neither further their cause, nor bring back the family he had ordered his unknowing subordinates to slaughter. Alive, he was another sword against Corypheus. So Inquisitor Trevelyan released him.

But she refused him the honorific title of Blackwall. Rainier was not a Grey Warden. He would be addressed by his real name.

Finally, the bleak proceedings were complete, Rainier’s shackles were removed, and everyone cleared out of the throne room.

Except Josephine.

She looked more like her usual self, though not quite as cheerful.

“Thank you, Inquisitor. Tales of your mercy and strength shall win over all of Thedas.”

Margie sighed.

“Is that what I’m trying to do, win the hearts of the masses?”

“No, you are interested in winning over only one heart, and you do not appear to be making much of an effort at it.”

“ _What_? Have you been talking with Varric?”

“No, Cassandra. But it does not matter, for it was evidence enough for the Inquisitor and the King to be in Lothering on the same day when neither had reason to visit Lothering at all.”

Margie gaped at her. Josephine grinned, her usual sparkle now back.

“Go, take your fastest Ferelden Forder, Mako, and she will spirit you to his arms in Denerim.”

“I—Josie—I can’t just take off for Denerim—”

“Very well, we recently paid courtesy to the Orlesian court at Halamshiral; we shall do the same for Ferelden. I will immediately write His Majesty to suggest he host a banquet in Denerim to formally acknowledge the Inquisition and celebrate the success of the parley I negotiated between King Alistair and Empress Celene.”

“Oh, Josephine!” Margie grabbed her in a bear hug and kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

“Do you love him?”

“Yes!”

“Then prepare for a journey to Denerim.

“I will inform Leliana and Morrigan: A delegation to Ferelden surely should include our Spymaster and Empress Celene’s arcane liaison.”

Josephine winked and returned to her office.

Margie flung her arms out and spun herself around in a circle. Yes! She’d never liked ballroom court appearances at home or in Orlais, but this was going to be a banquet. A banquet in _Alistair’s home_.

“Surely he must have beds and doors with locks there.”

She needed a gift for the host. _She_ , of course, was going to be his gift, but it would be inappropriate to share that detail with the world. There was one thing she could officially do for him as the Inquisitor: arrange for a visit from an exiled friend.

Margie found Alistair’s cousin browsing in the library with Solas and Dorian.

“Hey, Connor, how would you like to visit Alistair?”

-

_Am I really doing this? Sneaking into the King’s fortress and bedchamber? Maker, I’ve gone completely mad._

At dusk, still a half-day’s ride from Denerim, everyone else in the Inquisitor’s entourage had made camp and Leliana pulled Margie aside.

“Go to him,” she whispered, and described how to get into the fortress grounds and personal chambers of the King without detection from the watch.

“ _Leliana!_ _How_ do you know how to find the King’s bedroom in the dark?”

“Just to deliver a message, Inquisitor—Alistair _was_ quite surprised when I showed up—though, I assure you, I never had the, uh, _pleasure_ of learning more.” She gave Margie a little push toward her horse.

“Go to him.”

Even in the dark, Margie made good time and found a Denerim stable where the sleepy stable hand didn’t recognize her because her uniform and face were covered by her black cloak and hood. Tomorrow she’d send an Inquisition agent to retrieve her horse and bring her to the King’s stables.

A dark cloud drifted over the moon and all that remained for light were a few torches in the main square.

Just as Leliana had described, Margie found the stone guardhouse next to the main portcullis. Two guards stood outside the door, watching the main square. It was easy to approach in stealth from the side and slip through the wood door. Soldiers slept in bunks and one man sat on a stool in a corner, hunched over a single candle to read the latest installment of _Swords and Shields_. She froze, but the reader didn’t look up, just absently waved a greeting in her direction, assuming he’d heard a fellow guard enter.

Careful not to rush and give herself away, she tread over to the stairwell that ran from the guardhouse up to the battlements. From there, it was simple to avoid the roving patrols, slip down another set of stairs into the dim courtyard, and scale a trellis in the King’s rose garden.

As she climbed over the railing, the clouds drifted again and the moon cast silver light from behind her.

His balcony doors were open. Moonlight spilled through them and across the bed where Alistair slept on his back, covered only by a thin sheet at his waist.

She silently crossed the threshold.

“You’re early,” he said from the bed, keeping his eyes closed.

She sighed.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“That’s too bad. I like to be woken by you.

“I’m a light sleeper—and you’ve got that delicious smell of the Fade mixed with carnations.”

“You can _smell_ me from over there?’

He smiled, eyes still closed, unmoving other than his chest to breathe and his lips to speak. Well, the sheet was starting to tent up—there was no hiding that.

“I’d rather smell you over here.”

She took off her cloak, glove, and clothes, and draped them over an armchair by his empty fireplace, sticking her boots underneath.

Then she slid into bed next to him and rested a cheek on his chest. He wrapped an arm around her, pulled the sheet further up over them both.

“This is nice,” he said.

“Yes. Nice.”

They lay in silence, listening to each other breathe.

-

He’d been asleep until he felt her silent footstep touch the balcony. Joy rushed through him and he willed himself to remain still, take it slow, let her ease in to the idea of being in his large Ferelden bed.

When she slid in beside him, all was right in the world.

Moonlight draped over them, giving his white sheet a silver glow. Now, in the gentle, quiet night, he was going to ask her. Ask her to rule Ferelden at his side. And, if she wished, start a family soon—even without more war, the taint meant he wouldn’t live much more than another fifteen years or so, and, if he was to have children of his own, he wanted them to be able to remember him. If she didn’t want to mother an heir, he’d just name one of the Guerrins his successor.

_I love you. Will you be my Queen?_

But they both were already drifting into sleep and the question remained unasked.

-

“So?” Josephine asked when she and Leliana joined Margie in the ladies’ parlor of the royal wing.

“We cuddled.”

Her friends shared an incredulous look.

“ _And?_ ”

“And we fell asleep. The trumpets announcing your arrival woke us, we threw some clothes on, and came down to meet you.”

Josephine stared at Margie and Leliana shook her head.

“You are in love with him, yes?”

“Of course I am, Leliana.”

“Did the two of you speak of it?”

_This is nice._

Margie gave her a guilty look and Leliana replied with a disgusted grunt.

“Tonight, after the banquet, you will go to his room, profess your love, and bed him.”

“Is my Spymaster ordering me to sleep with the King of Ferelden?”

“No, Margie, I simply want two of my dearest friends to get on with their lives. You and Alistair need some joy.”

-

As she prepared for dinner, Margie left her hands bare, for she never gloved her Marked hand and it would look odd to wear only one. It was an odd sensation to have both hands free, but it troubled her less than what she hadn’t yet been able to spit out.

 _How hard can it be to just_ say _it?_

“Alistair, I love you.”

Yes, tonight she would tell him.


	10. A door with a lock

The Inquisitor was seated at the King’s right hand, the King’s cousin at his left, and the other Inquisition representatives were mixed among noble guests and friends at the King’s table and the lesser tables that surrounded it.

It was a much more intimate and amiable affair than their evening at Halamshiral. There seemed to be no end to the warm Ferelden food and fresh fruits, and the wine flowed freely. Each course was more delicious than the next and the laughter and toasts grew louder as the evening progressed.

Alistair’s toast had been her favorite.

“My friends,” he rose to his feet at the head of the first table. “We are honored tonight to host the Inquisition. I raise a toast to the Inquisitor, sent to us by the Maker and His Bride”—he looked straight at her, his fierce grey gaze piercing her heart.

“—by the Maker and His Bride,” he repeated, returning his eyes to the room at large. “Lady Margaret Trevelyan of Ostwick, the Herald of Andraste, closed the Breach to save us all. To the Inquisitor, savior of Thedas, beloved friend of Ferelden.”

“To the Inquisitor!” Everyone raised their glasses and drank, immediately falling back into excited chatter about the King’s most distinguished guests.

After the final dessert course, Alistair rose, offered Margie his arm, and they led everyone to the adjoining parlor for after-dinner drinks and conversation. Small round tables were set with well-crafted armchairs by roaring fireplaces so that small groups could play cards or just gossip.

He didn’t release her arm.

A talkative Teyrna approached and shrewdly eyed her while she asked the King about trade routes and a potential alliance with Teyrn Fergus. Margie refrained from rolling her eyes, but was able to shoot a glance at Josephine, who was smoothing things over between Morrigan and an inebriated Teyrn with roaming hands.

_Help!_

Alistair caught the look.

“Would you like an introduction to Ambassador Montilyet and Lady Morrigan from the Orlesian court?” he asked.

“Oh, Your Majesty,” the Teyrna’s eyes widened. “Such an honor would be most welcome.”

Alistair led them over to the ambassador and Josephine deftly smoothed the Teyrna into a conversation with some other nobles.

Then he led Margie toward the balcony. He still had not dropped her arm.

Inside, awareness rose as a flurry of warm bubbles up from her toes, across her chest and lips. Her mind was dizzy in a manner that had nothing to do with the one glass of wine she’d had with dinner.

“It’s a scandal, Alistair,” she teased, not caring how breathily it came out. “You can’t have a single woman monopolize your attention all evening. You have other guests.”

“Let them talk,” he growled and side-stepped into a shadowed corner between the balcony door and fire.

Alistair turned to face her, crushing her right hand—gloveless for once—to his chest and raising her left to kiss the inside of her wrist. Just a gentle brush of lips to fair skin over her pounding pulse.

“Ungh.” Her mind went from dizzy to blank. What was it they were supposed to be doing?

He pressed another kiss in the same place, mouth opening enough to lap the underside of her wrist with his moist, hot, clever tongue.

“ _Alistair_ ,” she breathed out.

He looked up, met her stare, pulled her closer so their elbows touched and he now held both of her hands in his against his hard, broad chest.

“Yes, Margie?”

“Are you”—she swallowed and tried again—“Are you really planning on ravishing me in the parlor in front of all your guests?”

He blinked and looked over her shoulder.

“I’d completely forgotten where we were.”

Her weak laugh was practically a whimper.

“Please tell me you have a door with a lock.”

“I do.”

“Praise Andraste.”

-

Alistair and Margie slipped from the shadowy corner, down along the vacant balcony to a servants’ door, and raced hand-in-hand to his personal rooms. He shut the door behind him and bolted it.

They were finally alone.

Servants had built up a crackling fire that cast shadows. The balcony doors by the bed were open to let the moonlight spill in.

“The mingling lights are so beautiful,” she said.

“You’re beautiful.”

She gave him a shy smile that ran him through.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he said, gently taking her hand. “I’d planned on being suave and patient and mature and discreet about it, instead of devouring you in public, like I just tried to do downstairs—Maker, I love how you smile at me, Margie.”

“That’s not a question.”

“No, I was distracted. What I mean to say—to ask—

“Margie, will you marry me?”

“Yes. Yes! Oh, yes, Alistair.”

She threw herself into his arms and kissed him senseless. It was like plunging into a deep pool on a scorching summer day, the pleasure of going under breathless and feeling the pressure of the water squeeze in.

She pushed him back against the bolted door more roughly than she had the cool wall of the guardhouse, pulled at his buttons and belt as she worked his mouth with her own. Big gulps, little nips, a strong thrust of her tongue, followed by an agonizingly tiny tease of lips to his chin.

He groaned and clutched her hips, his eyes rolling up as his head fell back against the door, giving her greater access to lave her tongue over his throat. She placed pert little kisses along his collar bone, sternum, down to the flat of his belly, dragging his open shirt down his arms, where it caught at his wrists.

“You’re going to have to let go of my ass long enough for me to get this blighted shirt off you.”

“Just long enough to get naked.”

“Absolutely, then grope away.”

They shared breathless laughter and silly little nonsense words as they hurriedly stripped each other.

“I could have gotten naked quicker myself,” she said, pulling him down on top of her on the bed where she lay flat.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Ah,” she raised a hand to caress his cheek, slowing their pace to a smolder, “but the reward is so great.”

“Margie,” he breathed. Her touch was a balm, her voice a wonder, her existence a miracle.

Alistair braced on his elbows above her, watching her as she watched him, the well of everything she’d never said visible in her eyes.

“Margie, I love you.”

“Make love to me, Alistair.”

He pressed his lips to the underside of her jaw, ran his sword-calloused hands over her smooth shoulders, down her arms, and traced the edge of his index fingers back up each side of her rib cage and over her pebbled nipples. She groaned from the back of her throat, mouth open, eyes closed, pressing her head back into the mattress and arching her neck toward the ceiling.

He took her breast in his mouth, marveling at how soft and full she was, and sucked.

She cried out as the first orgasm tore through her body, trembling against his, her little aftershocks fueling the trembling of his own body.

Again watching him, she thread her fingers through his, eased her legs apart, raised her knees, and whispered.

“Make love to me.”

They gasped together as he slid into her wet and throbbing core. She clenched around him, blindly whispered his name.

He slipped his hands beneath her to tilt her hips up and started a deliberate pace of thrusts, long, slow, and deep—but there was nothing languid in their quivering muscles and sweating skin.

“Alistair!” Her cry echoed through his chambers as they crested together and he followed her over the cliff of pleasure into the abyss.


	11. The unknown

She woke with a molten glow within her. Margie lay on her back, sheet pulled to her waist and half-way up Alistair’s back as he slept curled on his side, cheek on her upper abdomen, arm draped over her hips.

The weight of his left thigh held her knee to the mattress. His right toes rested against the side of her left pinky toe, a delicious little spot of warmth that was far more arousing than it should have been.

Wrapped together as they were, there was no way she would be able to get up without waking him.

“Good morning,” he said against her belly without looking up. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“Not for the last hour.”

She loved the way his gold hair tickled the underside of her breasts and his voice rumbled against her pelvis while he talked.

“I’ve been enjoying how the sun warms our toes together under the blankets.”

“Was that a Kingly thought?”

“Certainly, and very manly, too.”

“Last night definitely established that you’re a man.”

“Noticed, did you?” He shifted to smile up at her. “That’s convenient, as I seem to recall finding a woman in this bed last night.”

She chuckled and idly smoothed his hair back. He rested his cheek on her belly while she ran her bare right hand over his scalp over and over again.

They lay in peace, listening to the silence, until a horn sounded the change of the watch and it was time for Margie to dress for the journey back to Skyhold.

-

While Alistair reviewed some household details with his steward, Margie gathered her gear and headed for the main foyer where the senior Inquisition agents would bid their host a final farewell. Just outside the door she found Josephine and Leliana in whispered giggles.

“ _That_ was a real party,” Josephine said.

“You two went out after the banquet last night?”

Josie nodded.

“What constitutes a real party?”

“It’s not a real party until someone’s small clothes are pinned to a chantry board,” Leliana answered, “And that’s all I’m saying about it.”

Margie snorted and left them to their whispers.

She handed her baggage to a footman, who carried it out to the Inquisition wagons and horses readying in the courtyard. The door closed behind him and she was alone in the foyer.

Alistair rushed in and took her hands—one gloved, one bare—in his.

“Sorry about that. I rely on Hill so much, I’m scared to cut his conversations short.”

“It’s okay, Alistair. I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”

She moved into his arms and lay her cheek against his chest.

“I was hoping for a kiss,” his voice trembled.

She looked up, leaned up, and kissed him, tame and tender while they kept their arms around each other’s waists.

“Ahem,” someone cleared their throat.

“Lady Morrigan.”

“King Alistair.”

Margie eased out of his arms, but allowed him to take and hold her left hand. The warm, steady touch had butterflies fluttering up from her palm, through her arm, and into her chest.

Josephine and Leliana joined them.

“Thank you for your most gracious hospitality, Your Majesty,” Josie curtsied. “The Inquisition, indeed all of Thedas, has been blessed by your generosity.”

“It was an honor and a pleasure, Ambassador. In fact, I wonder if I might be of further service.” He half-turned toward Margie to address her directly.

“If this dragon of Corypheus turns out to be an archdemon, you will need a Grey Warden to kill it.”

The butterflies in her chest turned to lead and dropped like a sharp and jagged stone into her stomach. She shook her head, but he continued.

“Those who survived Adamant aren’t very experienced. If they fall, you may need me— _will_ need me.”

“So you can die, too?” Morrigan scoffed. “Throw your life away in your grief?”

Alistair dropped her hand and took a step toward Morrigan.

“It wouldn’t be my first choice.”

“She never was your first choice. You were not even at her side when she died,” Morrigan spat out. Both Alistair and Leliana flinched. “Yes, Leliana told me. Of all of us, only Leliana remained true.”

“ _You_ left. Ran away the night before the battle. I held the gate out of respect for _her_ choice. Riordan was dead. There was no way both she and I could have survived, and _she_ chose _me_ , and took the old god into herself to save us all.”

Morrigan stole a glance at Leliana.

“What?” Alistair demanded. “You two know something. Out with it.”

“The eve before battle, I told Katherine of a ritual that could capture the old god in a benign form, bind it within a newly-conceived child, who would be born and thrive as a normal person.”

“You’re saying that if she and I had conceived on that night, she would have survived the killing blow?”

Morrigan remained silent.

“Kate did not have the arcane skill required,” Leliana’s voice was even softer than usual.

“Me, have a baby with _Morrigan_?”

“No need to sound so disgusted,” Morrigan shot back.

“I’m not, it just hadn’t ever occurred to me.”

“That’s what every woman wants to hear,” Morrigan snorted

“Katherine declined my offer, I called her a fool . . . and I left.”

“Morrigan, why didn’t you ask _me_?”

“I don’t regret leaving Denerim—I regret leaving _her_. _She_ was my friend. I wanted to save _her_ life, not yours.” Morrigan quavered with unshed tears.

“And though you traveled far with us,” Leliana said, “we did not offer you our friendship. I am sorry, Morrigan.”

Silence draped the room.

“Is that your wish, Alistair?” Margie’s whisper made them all jump. They had forgotten she was there, they were so wrapped up in memories of—and yearnings for—Kate.

“To have an heir with Morrigan and have Katherine ruling Ferelden at your side?”

“Margie—” he reached for her, but she jumped back.

“No! Don’t touch me.”

Sobbing, she ran from the room, past Josephine, who had watched it all in shock with her hands pressed over her mouth.

Margie dashed through the same halls she had raced through holding Alistair’s hand last night, through a servant’s entrance to the kitchen, and out a back door. Blind with grief, she let her instincts carry her along the walls bordering the gardens—rose gardens for Katherine—and swallowed sounds that wanted to wail from her.

She was a rogue, and stealth was natural to her even in the cruelly bright light of this day. She slipped unseen through the front gate and stumbled to an alley as far from the King’s fortress as could be found in Denerim.

Margie fell to her knees and let the tears fall freely. She scrunched up into a ball, face down with her mouth against the back of her hands to muffle the sobs and screams she couldn’t hold in. She cried until rivulets of mud flowed around her in the dirt.

It felt like an entire age had come and gone by the time she was all out of tears. She remained prone, shuddering, on the ground.

At dusk, that’s where Varric and Bull found her.

-

She returned to her Skyhold duties with a formal reserve eerily similar to a Tranquil. She wasn’t listless, she was . . . empty. She didn’t understand how empty could also hurt.

When Varric wrapped his arms around her in the alley, she’d let him. Bull stood guard at the alley’s mouth while Varric helped her to her feet and tried to check her over for injuries.

“I’m fine,” she had told them, “just stiff from sitting in one place for too long. We must return to Skyhold.”

They’d brought her horse along with their mounts and set out straight for home, stopping only when it was required to rest their horses, and arriving at Skyhold a full two days before the rest of the delegation that had gone to the banquet in Denerim.

When Commander Cullen reported that troops were ready to move on the Arbor Wilds, she nodded and prepared for departure like it was just another outing, not a savage forest filled with Red Templars, an ancient elven temple filled with mysterious dangers, and an eluvian that would let Corypheus conquer the heavens and lay waste to the world.

She knew it was bad and she had to stop it. She just couldn’t bring herself to care.

But Morrigan seemed to care, so Margie asked her to drink from The Well of Sorrows to preserve powers that might otherwise serve Corypheus.

She did feel a little twinge when Abelas walked away and Solas told her “Abelas” means sorrow.

_Perhaps I need to find a new name, too._

Her adrenaline had pumped when Corypheus lurched after them, grasping at thin air when they plunged through the eluvian to Skyhold. But her heart hadn’t felt fear, or anger, or any other human emotion.

_I’m empty._


	12. Sacred Ashes, True Love

The Inquisitor sat at her desk, staring out at the gathering darkness, her mind as blank as her heart.

Reports sat in front of her, ignored. They said exactly what her three advisors had told her an hour ago in the war room: We don’t know where Corypheus is, we don’t know what he’s doing, and we have no further leads or ideas on how to stop him from laying waste to the world.

The one thing that had briefly sparked Margie’s interest this week was meeting Morrigan’s mother, who had melded souls with the ancient goddess Mythal. Flemeth was such a cheerful and witty sociopath that Margie almost found herself liking her—if Margie had possessed the capacity to ever like or dislike anyone or anything again.

Two brief nocks echoed up her stairwell, but Margie remained sitting where she was, silently staring out into the darkness.

She heard the soft footfall of someone coming up her steps, approaching her desk. Still she did not move from her silent staring.

“You have a message from Denerim,” Leliana said.

Margie did not reply.

“Will you not read it?”

“What does it say?” Her voice cracked, rusty from weeks spent saying so little.

“It is addressed to you.”

Without looking at the Spymaster, she took the scroll from her outstretched hand, saw Alistair’s solid, clear handwriting of her name.

_Margie._

Not Inquisitor, Herald, Lady Trevelyan, or even Margaret. _Margie._

She sighed, almost felt something. At least her breathing wasn’t quite so tight as it had been since her return from Denerim.

Under Leliana’s watchful eye, Margie unrolled the parchment and read Alistair’s surprisingly short letter.

_Margie, I love you. I am forever yours. -Alistair_

The edges of the void in her chest started to waver, let in sensations again. She noticed the smell of Leliana’s leather gloves, the chirp of insects outside her open balcony door. Maybe she could feel—

The sky exploded.

The Herald of Andraste jumped to her feet and ran with Leliana out on the balcony. The ground quaked, the stone walls of Skyhold shook, and the violent green Breach in the sky was torn wide again over Haven.

Most of the Inquisition’s troops were still on the march back from the Arbor Wilds. Margie could only take a handful of soldiers and leave Skyhold adequately defended.

As she, Morrigan, Cassandra, Varric, and Solas mounted at the stables, Connor came running up to her. His hair shone as gold as Alistair’s in the torchlight.

“Inquisitor!” He shoved a sack in her hand. When their fingers touched, lightning and fire passed through her innards. She gaped at him.

_How powerful was this boy—this man?_

“These potions will serve you better than any other. Now, go!” He slapped her horse on the hindquarters and she was off, racing head-long toward an ancient darkspawn Magister who controlled a red lyrium dragon and had the means to become a vengeful god to rule them all.

-

Alistair stood on his balcony. Instead of looking down into the garden, he was looking up, his guts quelling with fear. The new Breach was visible throughout Thedas, possibly even across the sea.

_She’s down there. Fighting that thing._

He refused to leave the balcony. He would occasionally sit on a chair his steward had brought out to him after he’d been standing for hours, then jump up and grip the railing until red welts lined his hands.

He didn’t sleep. He automatically ate the food Hill put in front of him and had no idea how it tasted. He had no recollection of what he said to his Captain when he came up to report his plans for bolstering the guard rotations while this new demon-spewing hole was in the sky.

Then a massive beam of green light shot from the world up to the heavens and the Breach imploded on itself, shaking the ground and echoing a boom to every corner of Thedas.

Leaving a cloudless, starless, midnight-black sky punctuated only by the calm, fair full moon. Her silver light reached through the skies and slipped across him, through his open balcony door, and into the room where he had asked Margie to be his wife.

Gone along with the Breach were the false whispers of the Calling in his head—definitive proof that Corypheus was destroyed.

_She has triumphed. Margie saved us all._

Alistair left the balcony to tend to his duties, but didn’t lose the last of his worry until a Denerim homing pigeon arrived from Skyhold.

He stood in front of the stables, heedless of his men, while he read her message and cried with relief. She had finally told him what he wanted to know.

_I love you too, Alistair. I’m coming home._

-

Just a day after her pigeon arrived, Alistair heard a warning horn call from the battlements and ran out to the courtyard.

No one approached the gate. All the guards were looking up to the sky and sharing awestruck exclamations.

Alistair looked.

Swooping down from the sky was a creature thought to be extinct: a Griffon with massive wings, a strong beak, and long talons on its four legs. On its back rode a blonde woman with green eyes.

He stumbled to the middle of the yard and crushed Margie to his chest when she dismounted.

“What? How?”

“Who, actually.”

He blinked and there stood Morrigan.

“Lady Morrigan.”

“King Alistair.”

“I thought you could only turn into a spider or a bear.”

She smiled, and, in one swift movement, raised her arms above her head to morph into a glistening raven and fly away without a farewell.

“She can turn into a dragon, too.”

“A—a _dragon_?!”

“Flemeth taught her on our way back from the Arbor Wilds.”

“Flemeth?” His knees shook and he thought he might vomit. “Uh, I helped kill her once, and she might still be pissed about that.”

“She’s not.”

Margie rested her right hand—bare for a second time—against his left cheek and caressed his worries away.

“Alistair, I’m home. Yes, I’ll marry you. Yes, I’ll be Queen of Ferelden and make heirs with you.

“I love you.”

It was the first time he’d heard her say it. Just when he thought he couldn't be any happier, she’d gone and said it, voicing the only desire his heart held for this world.

“I wrote it to you first, but I say it to you now, and I’ll tell you every day for as long as we both shall live.

“Alistair, I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Check out my Pinterest board for this story at https://www.pinterest.com/dafan7711/the-king-and-the-inquisitor-by-dafan7711-on-ao3/
> 
> Curious about Connor? Read his story at http://archiveofourown.org/works/4683272/chapters/10690550


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